Nietzsche essays

Nietzsche essays

Friedrich Nietzsche Essays (Examples),How historical knowledge can be both a blessing and a curse

Friedrich Nietzsche (–) was a German philosopher and cultural critic who published intensively in the s and s. He is famous for uncompromising criticisms of traditional European morality and religion, as well as of conventional philosophical ideas and social and political pieties associat See more WebNov 30,  · Nietzsche Essays. Nietzsche Influence. Srivaishnav Gandhe blogger.com English 30 Nov. Thesis Nietzsche and his Influence on the Modern Western World Web1 day ago · Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the most controversial philosophers and writers of the 19th century, and his work continues to exert an enormous amount of influence WebFriedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, and William Golding, an English author, lived and died in two seemingly separate worlds. They came from different time periods, WebDec 27,  · Simple & Easy Nietzsche Essay Topics Who Is Right About Ethics of Power Relationships, Hegel or Nietzsche What Heidegger Wishes to Transcend: Metaphysics ... read more

In this essay, he puts forth an interpretation of the structure Friedrich Nietzsche Metaphysics. Social stratification does more than distinguish people by wealth and occupation; it also impacts the way people view themselves and analyze others around them. The mental workings of people are of particular interest to philosophers who propose theories on the holistic psychology of different demographics, Friedrich Nietzsche Social Stratification Web Dubois. The news platform has evolved over the ages starting from the printing press which came into existence in around s till date.

Now we are living in the new era where we have internet which connects people from all around the world regardless of the Fake News Friedrich Nietzsche Media Bias. If you had the choice to erase an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend from your mind, would you? This is the decision Joel Barrish faces in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Would erasing all memories of a person be worth it in the long run? Evil and its origins is a very difficult subject to comprehend. It is a concept people have been contemplating for centuries. At the forefront of this subject are the arguments put forth by two of the most well-known philosophers in history, Saint Augustine and Friedrich Problem of Evil Existence of God Friedrich Nietzsche.

Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche were instrumental in introducing new ideas into the spectrum of the human psyche and how we view criminals and punishment. There are not many novels that sift through the behavior that humans exhibit the way that Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky does Crime and Punishment Friedrich Nietzsche. Both men want to expose what they see as the impediments of society on the freedom of the individual. Both attack and condemn organized religion as a disguise for Sigmund Freud Friedrich Nietzsche. Feeling stressed about your essay? Starting from 3 hours delivery.

There is of course an implicit criticism of the traditional picture of a-perspectival objectivity here, but there is equally a positive set of recommendations about how to pursue knowledge as a finite, limited cognitive agent. In working out his perspective optics of cognition, Nietzsche built on contemporary developments in the theory of cognition—particularly the work of non-orthodox neo-Kantians like Friedrich Lange and positivists like Ernst Mach, who proposed naturalized, psychologically-based versions of the broad type of theory of cognition initially developed by Kant and Schopenhauer see Clark ; Kaulbach , ; Anderson , , ; Green ; Hill ; Hussain The Kantian thought was that certain very basic structural features of the world we know space, time, causal relations, etc.

were artifacts of our subjective cognitive faculties rather than properties or relations of things in themselves; but where Kant and Schopenhauer had treated these structures as necessary, a priori conditions of any possible experience whatsoever, the more naturalistically oriented figures who influenced Nietzsche sought to trace them to sources in human empirical psychology, which would of course be contingent. The potential of these ineliminable subject-side influences to vary suggests the idea of treating them as a kind of perspective , which Nietzsche found developed in an idealist version by Gustav Teichmüller In particular, the Genealogy passage emphasizes that for him, perspectives are always rooted in affects and their associated patterns of valuation. Thus, theoretical claims not only need to be analyzed from the point of view of truth, but can also be diagnosed as symptoms and thereby traced back to the complex configurations of drive and affect from the point of view of which they make sense.

Nietzsche makes perspectivist claims not only concerning the side of the cognitive subject, but also about the side of the truth, or reality, we aim to know. See recent exchanges on this topic between Clark and Nehamas , , These efforts argue for strong connections between perspectivism and the will to power doctrine section 6. Nietzsche himself suggests that the eternal recurrence was his most important thought, but that has not made it any easier for commentators to understand. But the texts are difficult to interpret. In the early reception, most readers took Nietzsche to be offering a cosmological hypothesis about the structure of time or of fate see Simmel [] ; Heidegger ; Löwith [] ; Jaspers [] , and various problems have been posed for the thesis, so understood Simmel [] —1n; Soll ; Anderson n Skeptics like Loeb are correct to insist that, if recurrence is to be understood as a practical thought experiment, commentators owe us an account of how the particular features of the relevant thoughts are supposed to make any difference Soll already posed a stark form of this challenge.

Three features seem especially salient: we are supposed to imagine 1 that the past recurs , so that what has happened in the past will be re-experienced in the future; 2 that what recurs is the same in every detail; and 3 that the recurrence happens not just once more, or even many times more, but eternally. The supposed recurrence 1 plausibly matters as a device for overcoming the natural bias toward the future in practical reasoning. Since we cannot change the past but think of ourselves as still able to do something about the future, our practical attention is understandably future directed. By imaginatively locating our entire life once again in the future, the thought experiment can mobilize the resources of our practical self-concern to direct an evaluative judgment onto our life as a whole.

Similar considerations motivate the constraint of sameness 2. If my assessment of myself simply elided any events or features of my self, life, or world with which I was discontent, it would hardly count as an honest, thorough self-examination. The constraint that the life I imagine to recur must be the same in every detail is designed to block any such elisions. As Reginster —7 observes, it is more difficult to explain the role of the third constraint, eternity. Reginster proposes that the eternity constraint is meant to reinforce the idea that the thought experiment calls for an especially wholehearted form of affirmation— joy —whose strength is measured by the involvement of a wish that our essentially finite lives could be eternal.

More modestly, one might think that Nietzsche considered it important to rule out as insufficient a particular kind of conditional affirmation, suggested by the Christian eschatological context, which would leave in place the judgment that earthly human life carries intrinsically negative value. After all, the devout Christian might affirm her earthly life as a test of faith , which is to be redeemed by an eternal heavenly reward should one pass that test—all the while retaining her commitment that, considered by itself, earthly life is a sinful condition to be rejected. It is held in many university libraries and is typically cited by volume and page number using the abbreviation KGA.

This entry cites published works in the English translations listed below, and for the unpublished writing, it cites the useful abridged version of the critical edition, prepared for students and scholars the Kritische Studienausgabe , KSA. Those references follow standard scholarly practice, providing volume and page numbers of the KSA , preceded by the notebook and fragment numbers established for the overall critical edition. English translations have now appeared containing selections from the unpublished writing included in KSA , and those volumes WEN , WLN are listed among the translations in the next section.

The full bibliographical information for the German editions is. Citations follow the North American Nietzsche Society system of abbreviations for reference to English translations. For each work, the primary translation quoted in the entry is listed first, followed by other translations that were consulted. Original date of German publication is given in parentheses at the end of each entry. evil: concept of existentialism Lange, Friedrich Albert Nietzsche, Friedrich: life and works Nietzsche, Friedrich: moral and political philosophy relativism Schopenhauer, Arthur. I am grateful to Rachel Cristy for exchanges that helped me work out basic ideas for the structure and contents of this entry.

Joshua Landy, Andrew Huddleston, Christopher Janaway, and Elijah Millgram provided helpful feedback on a late draft, and each saved me from several errors. Copyright © by R. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © by The Metaphysics Research Lab , Department of Philosophy, Stanford University. Menu Browse Table of Contents What's New Random Entry Chronological Archives About Editorial Information About the SEP Editorial Board How to Cite the SEP Special Characters Advanced Tools Contact Support SEP Support the SEP PDFs for SEP Friends Make a Donation SEPIA for Libraries. Entry Navigation Entry Contents Bibliography Academic Tools Friends PDF Preview Author and Citation Info Back to Top.

Friedrich Nietzsche First published Fri Mar 17, ; substantive revision Thu May 19, Life and Works 2. Critique of Religion and Morality 3. Value Creation 3. The Self and Self-fashioning 5. Key Doctrines 6. Life and Works Nietzsche was born on October 15, , in Röcken near Leipzig , where his father was a Lutheran minister. Critique of Religion and Morality Nietzsche is arguably most famous for his criticisms of traditional European moral commitments, together with their foundations in Christianity. GM III, 15 Thus, Nietzsche suggests, The principal bow stroke the ascetic priest allowed himself to cause the human soul to resound with wrenching and ecstatic music of every kind was executed—everyone knows this—by exploiting the feeling of guilt. A well-known passage appears near the opening of the late work, The Antichrist : What is good?

What is bad? Everything that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing , that resistance is overcome. For example, in GS 2 Nietzsche expresses bewilderment in the face of people who do not value honesty: I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lacks an intellectual conscience. Nietzsche often recommends the pursuit of knowledge as a way of life: No, life has not disappointed me… ever since the day when the great liberator came to me: the idea that life could be an experiment for the seeker for knowledge…. GS Indeed, he assigns the highest cultural importance to the experiment testing whether such a life can be well lived: A thinker is now that being in whom the impulse for truth and those life-preserving errors now clash for their first fight, after the impulse for truth has proved to be also a life-preserving power.

GS A second strand of texts emphasizes connections between truthfulness and courage , thereby valorizing honesty as the manifestation of an overall virtuous character marked by resoluteness, determination, and spiritual strength. GS But even in the face of such worries, Nietzsche does not simply give up on truthfulness. Nietzsche raises a more specific worry about the deleterious effects of the virtue of honesty—about the will to truth, rather than what is true—and artistry is wheeled in to alleviate them, as well: If we had not welcomed the arts and invented this kind of cult of the untrue, then the realization of general untruth and mendaciousness that now comes to us through science—the realization that delusion and error are conditions of human knowledge and sensation—would be utterly unbearable.

GM III, 12 As the passage makes clear, however, Nietzschean perspectives are themselves rooted in affects and the valuations to which affects give rise , and in his mind, the ability to deploy a variety of perspectives is just as important for our practical and evaluative lives as it is for cognitive life. The Self and Self-fashioning A probing investigation into the psyche was a leading preoccupation for Nietzsche throughout his career, and this aspect of his thought has rightly been accorded central importance across a long stretch of the reception, all the way from Kaufmann to recent work by Pippin , Katsafanas , Leiter , Riccardi , and others. To the natural complaint that such telegraphic treatment courts misunderstanding, he replies that One does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood.

Instead, the aphorism that requires so much interpretation is the compressed, high-impact arrival point of GM III, 1; the section begins by noting a series of different things that the ascetic ideal has meant, listed one after another and serving as a kind of outline for the Treatise, before culminating in the taut aphorism: That the ascetic ideal has meant so much to man, however, is an expression of the basic fact of the human will, its horror vacui : it needs a goal ,—and it would rather will nothingness than not will. GM III, 1 It is to this compressed formulation, not the entirety of the section, that Nietzsche returns when he wraps up his interpretation in GM III, If this is right, the very vitriol of the Genealogy arises from an aim to be heard only by the right audience—the one it can potentially aid rather than harm—thereby overcoming the problem that There are books that have opposite values for soul and health, depending on whether the lower soul… or the higher and more vigorous ones turn to them.

GM III, 12 This famous passage bluntly rejects the idea, dominant in philosophy at least since Plato, that knowledge essentially involves a form of objectivity that penetrates behind all subjective appearances to reveal the way things really are, independently of any point of view whatsoever. The full bibliographical information for the German editions is KGA Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe , edited by G. Colli and M. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, ff. KSA Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe , edited by G. BT The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music , Walter Kaufmann trans.

UM Untimely Meditations , R. Hollingdale trans. HH Human, All-too-human: a Book for Free Spirits , R. I, ; Vol. II, — D Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality , R. GS The Gay Science , Walter Kaufmann trans. I also consulted The Gay Science , J. Nauckhoff trans. Z Thus Spoke Zarathustra , Walter Kaufmann trans. BGE Beyond Good and Evil , Walter Kaufmann trans. GM On the Genealogy of Morality , Maudemarie Clark and Alan Swensen trans. I also consulted On the Genealogy of Morals , Walter Kaufmann trans. TI Twilight of the Idols , Walter Kaufmann trans. CW The Wagner Case , Walter Kaufmann trans. NCW Nietzsche Contra Wagner , Walter Kaufmann trans.

A The Antichrist , Walter Kaufmann trans. EH Ecce Homo , Walter Kaufmann trans. WP The Will to Power , Walter Kaufmann and R. New York: Vintage, , WEN Writings from the Early Notebooks , Ladislaus Löb trans. WLN Writings from the Late Notebooks , Kate Sturge trans. Secondary Literature Abel, Günther, , Nietzsche: die Dynamik der Willen zur Macht und die ewige Wiederkehr , Berlin: W. de Gruyter. doi: Anderson, R. Beauvoir, Simone de, , The Ethics of Ambiguity , Bernard Frechtman trans. Benne, Christian, , Nietzsche und die historisch-kritische Philologie , Berlin: W. Berry, Jessica, , Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptical Tradition , Oxford: Oxford University Press. Came, Daniel ed. Clark, Maudemarie, , Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Reprinted in Clark a: — Deleuze, Gilles, [] , Nietzsche and Philosophy , Hugh Tomlinson trans. de Man, Paul, , Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Gipps, Richard G. Green, Michael, , Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition , Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Haar, Michel, [] , Nietzsche and Metaphysics , Michael Gendre trans. Hatab, Lawrence, , A Nietzschean Defense of Democracy: an Experiment in Postmodern Politics , La Salle, IL: Open Court Press. Heidegger, Martin, , Nietzsche , Pfullingen: Neske. Translated in 4 vols. by David Farrell Krell, as Nietzsche , London: Routledge, ff.

Heit, Helmut, Günther Abel, and Marco Brusotti eds. Hussain, Nadeem J. Kaufmann, Walter, , Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist , 1st edition, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kaulbach, Friedrich, , Nietzsches Idee einer Experimentalphilosophie , Köln: Böhlau. Kofman, Sarah, [] , Nietzsche and Metaphor , Duncan Large trans. Korsgaard, Christine, , The Sources of Normativity , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprinted in Gemes and May — Leiter, Brian and Neil Sinhababu eds. Harvey Lomax trans. Ulatowski and L. van Zyl, Virtue, Narrative, and Self , New York: Routledge: — Moore, Gregory, , Nietzsche, Biology, and Metaphor , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Owen, David, , Nietzsche, Politics, and Modernity: a Critique of Liberal Reason , London: Sage. Pippin, Robert B. Poellner, Peter, , Nietzsche and Metaphysics , Oxford: Oxford University Press. a Life of Nietzsche , New York: Tim Duggan Books. Wood and Songsuk Susan Hahn eds. Ricoeur, Paul, [] , Freud and Philosophy: an Essay on Interpretation , Denis Savage trans. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, [] , Emile, or On Education , Allan Bloom trans. Roux, Wilhelm, , Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus , Leipzig: W. Safranski, Rüdiger, , Nietzsche: a Philosophical Biography , Shelley Frisch trans. Salomé, Lou, [] , Nietzsche , S.

Mandel trans. Richard, , Nietzsche , London: Routledge. Schopenhauer, Arthur, , Parerga and Paralipomena , Vol. I, Sabine Roehr and Christopher Janaway trans. Small, Robin, , Nietzsche and Rée: a Star Friendship , Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche argues that the soul of the last man is damned because he is unable to attain the set of the moral ideals set by the law. According to the argument, death is a separation of the body and the soul. While the body is finite and has no use after death, the soul is immortal and is the only useful part […]. On balance, it is possible to note that Nietzsche and Sartre both see morality as certain doctrine aimed at helping people live in the society. Without the body of the argument, the title expresses that there is a form of lying that is not considered immoral.

Freudian and Nietzsche view of religion, god and civilization The origin of religion and civilization, according to the philosophy of Nietzsche and Freud, seem to begin with their inquest to the existence of god. However, since it is very similar to others and has similar characteristics, a person categorizes it with the rest of the leaves. Nietzsche praised the master moralities as the strong values that lead to onward development and evolutionary growth of mankind while he blamed the slave moralities for the weak and decadent nature of the society. For Nietzsche decorative culture is a culture that is not real and is not based on reality. Zarathustra argues that, wandering in mountains is a pleasant experience, which is going to shape his fate, for he believes that he has control of his life and will not allow fate to overtake him.

Darwin gave the world his famous book On the Origin of Species, in which he tried to trace the genealogy of some species and which made a revolution in the world of science. He is examining the notion of autonomy and what truly constitutes an autonomous act and arrives at the understanding that what is important in the question of free will is the rationale behind the choice […]. In many ways, the extreme rationalism of Descartes, its traditional alternative and empiricist aspects and the debate between them, constitute the part of the Enlightenment which had the greatest influence in the nineteenth century.

Greece, Rome, the Renaissance , which includes knowledge of past philosophy, literature, art, music, and so on. Here, as in all his writings, the creation of an impressive culture is of prime importance to Nietzsche. In the early 19th century, Hegel had constructed a philosophy of history which saw the history of civilization as both the expansion of human freedom and the development of greater self-consciousness regarding the nature and meaning of history. After Hegel, it was generally accepted that a knowledge of the past is a good thing. In fact, the nineteenth century prided itself on being more historically informed than any previous age. Nietzsche, however, as he loves to do, calls this widespread belief into question. He identifies 3 approaches to history: the monumental, the antiquarian, and the critical.

Each can be used in a good way, but each has its dangers. giving it a more beautiful content. One thing that all great individuals have in common is a cavalier willingness to risk their life and material well-being. Such individuals can inspire us to reach for greatness ourselves. They are an antidote to world-weariness. But monumental history carries certain dangers. When we view these past figures as inspirational, we may distort history by overlooking the unique circumstances that gave rise to them. It is quite likely that no such figure could arise again since those circumstances will never occur again.

Another danger lies in the way some people treat the great achievements of the past e. Greek tragedy, Renaissance painting as canonical. They are viewed as providing a paradigm that contemporary art should not challenge or deviate from. When used in this way, monumental history can block the path to new and original cultural achievements. Antiquarian history refers to the scholarly immersion in some past period or past culture. This is the approach to history especially typical of academics. It can be valuable when it helps to enhance our sense of cultural identity. When contemporary poets acquire a deep understanding of the poetic tradition to which they belong, this enriches their own work.

But this approach also has potential drawbacks. Too much immersion in the past easily leads to an undiscriminating fascination with and reverence for anything that is old, regardless of whether it is genuinely admirable or interesting. Antiquarian history easily degenerates into mere scholarliness, where the purpose of doing history has long been forgotten. And the reverence for the past it encourages can inhibit originality. The cultural products of the past are seen as so wonderful that we can simply rest content with them and not try to create anything new. Critical history is almost the opposite of antiquarian history. Instead of revering the past, one rejects it as part of the process of creating something new. Original artistic movements are often very critical of the styles they replace the way Romantic poets rejected the artificial diction of 18th-century poets.

The danger here, though, is that we will be unfair to the past. In particular, we will fail to see how those very elements in past cultures that we despise were necessary; that they were among the elements that gave birth to us. On the contrary. Scholars obsess over methodology and sophisticated analysis. In doing so, they lose sight of the real purpose of their work. Very often, instead of trying to be creative and original, educated people simply immerse themselves in relatively dry scholarly activity. The result is that instead of having a living culture, we have merely a knowledge of culture. Instead of really experiencing things, we take up a detached, scholarly attitude to them. One might think here, for instance, of the difference between being transported by a painting or a musical composition, and noticing how it reflects certain influences from previous artists or composers.

Halfway through the essay, Nietzsche identifies five specific disadvantages of having too much historical knowledge. The rest of the essay is mainly an elaboration on these points. The five drawbacks are:. In explaining points 4 and 5, Nietzsche embarks on a sustained critique of Hegelianism. Nietzsche does not mention in this essay his friend at the time, the composer Richard Wagner. But in drawing the contrast between those who merely know about culture and those who are creatively engaged with culture, he almost certainly had Wagner in mind as an exemplar of the latter type.

Nietzsche was working as a professor at the time at the University of Basle in Switzerland. Basle represented historical scholarship. Whenever he could, he would take the train to Lucerne to visit Wagner, who at the time was composing his four-opera Ring Cycle. For Wagner, the creative genius who was also a man of action, fully engaged in the world, and working hard to regenerate German culture through his operas, exemplified how one could use the past Greek tragedy, Nordic legends, Romantic classical music in a healthy way to create something new. Share Flipboard Email. By Emrys Westacott Emrys Westacott.

Emrys Westacott is a professor of philosophy at Alfred University. He is the author or co-author of several books, including "Thinking Through Philosophy: An Introduction. Learn about our Editorial Process. Cite this Article Format. Westacott, Emrys. Nietzsche's "The Use And Abuse Of History". copy citation. Featured Video. Why Did Nietzsche Break With Wagner? Nietzsche's Concept of the Will to Power. What Does Nietzsche Mean When He Says That God Is Dead? Nietzsche's Idea of Eternal Recurrence. Top 10 Beatles Songs With Philosophical Themes. Moral Philosophy According to Immanuel Kant.

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Nietzsche Essays,Top 10 Similar Topics

WebFriedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, and William Golding, an English author, lived and died in two seemingly separate worlds. They came from different time periods, Friedrich Nietzsche (–) was a German philosopher and cultural critic who published intensively in the s and s. He is famous for uncompromising criticisms of traditional European morality and religion, as well as of conventional philosophical ideas and social and political pieties associat See more WebNov 30,  · Nietzsche Essays. Nietzsche Influence. Srivaishnav Gandhe blogger.com English 30 Nov. Thesis Nietzsche and his Influence on the Modern Western World WebDec 27,  · Simple & Easy Nietzsche Essay Topics Who Is Right About Ethics of Power Relationships, Hegel or Nietzsche What Heidegger Wishes to Transcend: Metaphysics WebFeb 18,  · Example Of Essay On Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals is considered to be one of his most important works. He is one of the WebJan 24,  · �� Good Essay Topics on Nietzsche The Nature of Knowledge and Morality: Discussion of Theories of Descartes, Hume, Kant and Nietzsche The Concept of Life and ... read more

The Twilight of the Gods. order now. Morality is a matter subjected to two different aspects: "noble" or "master" morality, and "slave" morality. Honesty would lead to nausea and suicide. Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud offer bold critiques of human morality that greatly differ from the commonly accepted views of virtue and ethics. Finally, in a society that jealously protects the perspective of the individual, Kant's appeal to universal or even "categorical" patterns of thought and morality is difficult to integrate into everyday life.

Nietzsche Essays. Afterward, via negation of the nietzsche essays of evil, the new concept of goodness emerges, nietzsche essays, rooted in altruistic concern of a sort that would inhibit evil actions. Ideas and Opinions. He insists that religion has now been proved to be a myth so man can now retain his strength and also retain his health. by David Farrell Krell, as NietzscheLondon: Routledge, ff.